Sebastopol woman, Army partners reach Mount Everest summit

Sebastopol’s Elyse Ping Medvigy scored a personal and team triumph early Tuesday, summiting Mount Everest on a mission to heighten awareness of mental anguish and suicide among combat veterans.

But the Army captain, believed to be the first active-duty female soldier to fight her way to the top of the world’s highest peak, was still waiting Tuesday night to learn whether two fellow climbers and their Sherpa guides were safe after summiting an hour or so after Ping Medvigy and 2nd Lt. Harold Earls.

The 26-year-old Ping Medvigy, a graduate of Sebastopol’s Analy High and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, phoned her parents early Tuesday morning in Sebastopol from advanced base camp on Everest’s northern, or Tibetan side, about 7,700 feet below the 29,035-foot summit.

“She sounded great,” said her father, Gary Medvigy, the Sonoma County Superior Court judge and recently retired Army Reserve major general. “She sounded very alert, very strong, very upbeat.”

At the same time, Medvigy said, his daughter was clearly concerned about fellow climber Chad Jukes, a retired Army staff sergeant who was fitted with a prosthesis after he lost much of his right leg in 2006 to a roadside bomb in northern Iraq, and Dave Ohlson, the filmmaker who’s chronicling the climb.

Jukes and Ohlson and their Sherpa guides reached the summit at about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday Tibetan time, approximately an hour behind Ping Medvigy and Earls. Tibet is 15 hours ahead of Santa Rosa time, so Ping Medvigy’s summit occurred about 4:45 p.m. Monday Santa Rosa time, or 7:45 a.m. Tuesday on Everest.

Jukes and Ohlson then descended to one of the two camps located above the advanced camp, one at 28,140 feet and the second at 24,750 feet. Ping Medvigy and Earls had reached the 21,300-foot camp prior to nightfall Tuesday following a long and aggressive descent.

Gary Medvigy said his daughter is especially concerned about Ohlson because the last she knew, he still suffered from the same severe intestinal infection that hobbled her for several days.

The judge said storm conditions on Everest’s north side remain harsh enough to pose a threat to Ohlson and Jukes, especially if they are out of or running low on bottled oxygen.

It was an enormous achievement for all four members of the team, organized by Earls’ nonprofit U.S. Expeditions and Explorations, or USX, to reach the summit amid a climbing season that has claimed four lives, all on the southern, or Nepalese, side of the mountain.

Conditions Tuesday at the summit were severe: Temperatures were double digits below zero and wind gusts reached 65 mph. Earls told USX his toes were frostbitten and bloody, and that icicles hung from his and Ping Medvigy’s suits as they descended from the summit.

Earls recounted that snow fell all night Monday, but as his portion of the team crested a 600-foot snowfield 30 or 40 minutes below the summit, the sun began to show through the clouds and provided an incredible view.

At the summit, Ping Medvigy braced herself against the roaring wind and posed for a photograph while holding photos of late Pfc. Keith Williams and Staff Sgt. Benjamin Prange. Ping Medvigy wasn’t far from them when both were killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2014.

USX believes Ping Medvigy is the first active-duty female soldier to summit Everest. The successful ascent may also be the first by a team comprised in part by active soldiers. Jukes became just the second combat-wounded amputee to make the summit - Marine veteran Charlie Linville climbed to the peak on a prosthesis only last week.

The USX climbers achieved their objective to spread word about the scourge of post traumatic stress syndrome and suicide among combat veterans, and to urge vets who suffer to reach out for help. But the victory celebration won’t happen on Everest until all four climbers and their guides are safely reunited, which Ping Medvigy hopes will happen today.

Back in Sebastopol, her mother, Christine Ping, said it was wonderful for the phone to ring at about 6 a.m. Tuesday and for her daughter to sound so good.

“We’re obviously concerned about Chad and Dave,” said Ping, a retired attorney.

Gary Medvigy said he hopes once the team leaves Tibet, his daughter will be able to stop at home before reporting for duty as a civil affairs officer at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“Otherwise,” he said, “I’m going to be flying back to Fort Bragg to see her.”